The Isle of Man branch of the Royal Naval Association is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Original founder member John Galt, 92, will be guest of honour at the event, taking place at the South Douglas Old Friends’ Association Club on Finch Road on Saturday, May 23, starting at 7pm.
Singer Anita J will providing the entertainment and the veterans will also be recreating the ‘D-Day Dodgers’.
Sung to the tune of the Lili Marlene, the song refers to comments allegedly made by Lady Astor in 1944 who claimed the Allied troops serving in Italy were living the high life, ‘always on the vino, always on the spree’.
In fact, the ‘D-Day Dodgers’ had already carried out their own landings in Sicily, Salerno and Anzio, and had fought at Monte Cassino, a five-month campaign which was one of the toughest of the Second World War and which ended just before the landings in Normandy.